Lie
by DeadManSeven
Summary: What is the truth? What is a lie?
1. Also by Derek Zischke...

Other stuff I've done __

Other works by this author:

[Beyond][1]

'Well, this was a captivating divergent...By this time we've come to expect good work from Mr. Zischke, and he's followed through.'  
([Worldmage][2])

'Overall, damn good.'  
([Seph Kahn][3])

'Excellent fic.'  
Aetolus

[New Mynds][4]

'What can I say. Wow.'  
Triphos

'Hey...nice story! Inspiring! Really it is. I love this story, it's so....empathically twisted, you could say. Genius, man...pure genius.'  
([Yebisu Beer][5])

[Inside][6]

'I believe that this applies very well to all otaku.'  
Katarn2XB

'I really like the questions raised here.'  
([Worldmage][2])

[Tears][7]

'What can one say other than...beautiful.'  
([The Dane][8])

'This was pretty deep and moving...I am in the presence of a master.'  
([Worldmage][2])

   [1]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-read&storyid=96896
   [2]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=directory-authorprofile&UserId=26129
   [3]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=directory-authorprofile&UserId=69990
   [4]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-read&storyid=114742
   [5]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=directory-authorprofile&UserId=27318
   [6]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-read&storyid=47586
   [7]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-read&storyid=113561
   [8]: http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=directory-authorprofile&UserId=21731



	2. Lie

Lie - Derek Zischke __

I don't own the characters and situations in Eva. I don't own the R.E.M. song I quote in here. As a matter of fact, I don't own much, but I'm a student, so I have no rights until I get a paying job.

****

Lie - Derek Zischke

Asuka woke. Not at the time one usually expects a teenage girl to wake; the clocks in the apartment all read in the vicinity of ten minutes past and a quarter of three. She also did not wake in the manner of a sleeper slowly coming down from their night's fragmented thoughts of dream. Instead, her eyes bolted open. Her body convulsed from a violent mental stimuli. She choked back a scream. Her hand fastened down on the light blanket covering her body.

The same dream. Always the same.

Asuka lay in her bed for a few long moments, not even performing what could be considered ordered thought, refusing to think of anything until her breathing became normal once again. Soon she would turn to her side and try to sleep, knowing full well that she would not be able to, and wait in the silence of the apartment until the sun rose, and day came once again.

The classroom was once again, for lack of a better phrase, dead boring.

Asuka glanced at Shinji for a moment, trying, not for the first time, to understand how he could be two different people sometimes...on one end, the fearless fighter that he was in his Eva, and on the other, a meek little boy that was always sorry. Oh, she could say how much it infuriated her that he was so spineless, but it wasn't for the reasons most people thought. On the first day she had met him, he had impressed her so much, when they had fought together in the same entry plug...and he was covering up that part of him with a trembling hand. It was enough to drive her insane, because she knew how brave and strong he could be. She wanted him to be brave, she wanted him to be strong, she wanted him to be...to be...

__

Oh God, just say it Asuka, I want him to be mine.

Fine. Yes, fine, there is was, it wasn't being hidden or edged at any more. Her sleeping habits (or rather, lack of) recently had given her time to reflect on all the things she had been doing without even realising...always baiting Shinji to try and get another look at the person he could be, instead of the one he was trying to be. Even Kaji...talking about him was just another way of trying to make him be more assertive, to stand up and defend his position. But he never did. He never did. It was infuriating down to the bone, that the only time he was ever a hero was when he was doing something he hated.

And what was she doing? Putting on a façade, nothing more, for the rest of the world to admire. It worked, alright...not a day went by that she wasn't greeted, nodded to, or generally acknowledged, but what was the point? Having the world as your friend didn't make you feel loved. It didn't make you feel powerful. It just made you feel more empty, and more alone, sitting in a room with a thousand voices speaking and being the only one that's dead silent. A thousand voices, and all Asuka wanted was the other one that wasn't saying anything.

Of all the luck.

She just kept thinking that there had to be some way to get him to respond...some action that would get him to fight back. In those long quiet hours in the morning, Asuka often wondered what may happen if, during the course of one of their instant dinners alone in the apartment, she just leaned across Misato's kitchen table and kissed him. To feel his lips against hers...to hold his head in her hands, so gently...to be-

****

RIIING!

The classroom erupted into unruly rabble, with Hikari's voice strewn through the noise, trying to keep everyone under control. Asuka blinked, and waited until everyone was quiet.

'I need a refill for this, please.'

The pharmacy was glaringly white, an unhealthy white that reflected everything around it. The shelves of medicine, all lined with pristine bottles, sealed with cheap plastic caps. Asuka had seen many of these places, and the hostility that lurked in them, the way they simply didn't seem to care, despite the symbol of the building as a place of healing.

She hated them.

The clerk was looking at her in an odd manner; Asuka was getting used to it. In Germany, she had never been famous. Everyone she met knew her name, but they were only the staff of the Second Branch, of which she was also a member. She had never been in a battle, never been featured on television, never been a topic of debate on the radio, never been subject to scrutiny in a newspaper. In Japan, people often make double-takes when passing her in the street, or sitting opposite her on the bus. Some times, if she was in the company of friends, she would wave to them, or flip an ever-popular gesture of recognition, the V of victory. If she were alone, she might acknowledge them, or she might try to avoid their glance entirely. In any case, she often wished that they would stop staring at her.

The clerk looked like he was about to stare.

Asuka grabbed for her Nerv ID from her pocket, which doubled as a bank card, and handed it to the clerk. There, he could see that the name matched the face on the card, and tell his friends and family that the world-famous Eva pilot came and bought sleeping pills today.

As the clerk watched Asuka leave through the sliding doors, he thought, 'Poor girl...I guess if I had to save the world, I'd have trouble sleeping, too.'

Asuka's first thought, when she stepped into the apartment, was to wonder how she had missed the classical music station while searching through the dial of a radio. Her second thought, which occurred upon entering the kitchen, was where Shinji had kept his cello.

She stood in the doorway for a while, watching him, the swaying of his head in time with the song and the movement of his bow, the way he was ignoring the rest of the world. Not that there was much around to ignore, seeing as Misato was out drinking and Pen Pen was probably watching television, but it was still a nice image.

A pang of guilt hit her, thinking about the boy that she had left standing in the line of a cheap fair roller-coaster while she had said she was going to get a drink. He had been nice, and she had thought that she could ignore the little nagging voice in her head for just one night, and maybe silence it forever, but that was apparently not to be the case. She had felt alone and singled out, a faceless face within the crowd, feeling wrong, feeling like an outsider, feeling open and afraid. She had suddenly wanted to suggest to go back to the apartment...but not with him...and it all...

__

No don't think about it it's okay now

Shinji had stopped playing.

'That was very nice.'

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The apartment was very still. The only thing moving in the room was Shinji's meticulous hand, grasping his pen, moving over a sheet of homework, and the stilted second hand of the clock, that no longer even seemed to flow from second to second, instead making each individual tick stand out on its own, assert itself, and be brushed aside by the next one, in a never-ending effort to make time seems slower than it really was.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Asuka's world was on a tilt, hair obscuring her face. Her left ear felt warm, the blood collecting in it from being pressed between her head and her forearm. Every time she took a breath, her view shifted slightly. She was vaguely aware that she was trying to match her breathing rate to the stilted clock.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It was unlike Asuka to spend so much time inactive, both physically and mentally. To an observer, she would be merely bored, but inside her head, thoughts were actively participating in a raging debate within, deliberating upon current matters over and over. She had left the cheap travelling fair to be here, and now she was too scared to follow through with what she wanted to happen. Too scared that he might just stand immobile, dumbfounded. Too scared that he may stand cold, rejecting.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

'Hey Shinji...'

An infinity of pause. Shinji raised his head from his paper to look along the length of Misato's kitchen table at her.

'...Would you...play for me?'

Damn.

Regardless, Asuka still enjoyed Shinji's music.

The room was still so sharply defined, even in the shroud of darkness. Her head was still clear, her mind still perfectly working, her nerves still perfectly limber. They weren't working. They weren't working. Why, why, they had always worked before, they had always worked perfectly. When the dreams had started, when she was at college, when she arrived in Japan, why weren't they working now?

Asuka was thinking of escaping her room once more to take another sleeping pill, but she was afraid to take more than two at a time. Even when only taking a half of one, it reminded her of the bottles and capsules that the nurses brought to her mother, all of them tested, none of them working. The pills were a barrier between her and the memories of her mother, but they were also her biggest link, and for that she hated them, and feared them, too. She was afraid that one day, in the sharp, dark room around her, that she would no longer be able to resist the dreams on two pills, even on the nights when they were at their worst, and she would succumb and take too many, and wake up like her mother, and sleep like her. Forever.

Never to wake again.

Asuka lay her head in her hands and cried, the feeling of solitude, weakness and fear hitting her all at once, welling up in her chest and crushing her heart. It hurt, it hurt to be alone, and hurt more to break her promises, to her mother, to herself, and the tears were not releasing any emotion in her, they were just breaking away the dam of her defences, making her alone, lost, and afraid.

'I won't cry any more,' she whispered, the tears staining her face and making a liar of her, 'I won't cry any more, I won't cry any more, I won't cry any more...'

'...Asuka...?'

Asuka froze, the voice cutting through the darkness. She had forgotten to shut her bedroom door, and she was able to see the kitchen through it. Would have been able to see the kitchen through it, if it wasn't being blocked.

'...Go away.'

Shinji's shadowy form remained in the doorway.

'Go away...please?'

Nothing moved. Asuka raised her head and glared at Shinji.

'What's the matter, I said go away!' Her voice, which she had meant to be threatening, came out as a plea, breaking under the weight of tears.

'I...I...want to ask you something.'

'What?' she snapped, thankful in the back of her mind that the darkness wouldn't reveal her tears.

Because he had been holding them in front of his leg, they were obscured in his shadow, and Asuka hadn't noticed. They rattled slightly as he raised the bottle that would have been a pristine white, with a cheap plastic cap, were it not for the dark.

'...What are these?'

__

Oh shit!

Asuka lowered her head, feeling defeated, and said nothing. She heard Shinji ask her name, quietly, and then his feet came into view. She was sure that, if she were to look up, she would see that apprehensive look in his face, the one when she could tell he was just dying to say something, but was too scared to.

'...Mine...'

'What?' he asked, kneeling down beside her.

'I said, they're mine. I...bought them today, because I don't sleep well. I...'

__

Say it if you don't say it now you never will

'...I get scared sometimes. At night.'

'I do too. Sometimes. Nightmares, I mean. I get them sometimes.' And he laughed that quiet little laugh he had when he was trying to overcome his nerves.

'So how do you handle them?' Asuka asked, raising her face to Shinji's, hoping again that her tears wouldn't show.

Shinji didn't reply. Instead, he reached his hand into his pocket, and brought out his SDAT player. Of course. Music. Of course. Shinji took one of the earplugs and stuck it in his left ear. And then, gesturing to Asuka, he took the other, placed it in her right, and hit the play button, resuming a song that had been in mid-note. The singer resumed his lyric, mid-word.

However, the words were ones that she couldn't understand. The song seemed familiar, but the lyrics were alien. She guessed that it must not be the original, when she noticed what Shinji was doing. His eyes were raised, as if looking at something high off in the distance, and his was rocking his head slightly to the beat of the song. Oh, Asuka realised, he must be trying to pick up the words to the song. Shinji began to speak, in time with the words, in Japanese so Asuka could understand.

'When you're sure you've had enough...of this life...hang on...'

This music was definitely calming; it was soft and subdued, and it was something Asuka was more used to, as it was clearly a song from western influence, even if it was old. She watched Shinji, who was looking elsewhere, imagining that the words were coming from his mouth and from his heart, with the song playing to the background.

'Don't let yourself go...'cause everybody cries...'

That last line hit her profoundly, made her almost forget the dying tears on her cheeks. Here she was, letting Shinji protect her, and he didn't even realise that he was doing so. This was what she wanted, wasn't it?

'Everybody hurts...'

It was the song. It was the sleeping pills. It was the fact that it was two in the morning. It was the fact that Shinji was sitting next to her and reciting lyrics that she wished were his real words. Asuka touched the back of her hand to Shinji's cheek, and he stopped staring off into the distance.

'Sometimes...'

After that one word, he had stopped reciting, too.

Morning. It was light. And Asuka was calm.

The first thing she realised was that she was not alone in her bed. The second thing she realised was that she wasn't concerned at all. Shinji's breath on her neck was comforting, and she would have been content to lie in her bed for the rest of the morning. She shifted herself slightly, and when Shinji spoke, it startled her a little, as she thought that he was still asleep.

'Awake?'

'Yeah...Shinji?'

'Hmm?'

'...Thankyou.'

They lay in silence for a few more moments. Asuka couldn't see Shinji's face, but she could feel his arms wrapped around her, his body warm against hers. Independence was a fool's game, at least total independence was. All the nights alone focusing on her study, all the training sessions she had taken to master control over her Eva, all the popularity and renown that being internationally famous could bring, none of it was as satisfying as knowing there was a shoulder for her to cry on.

__

Careful Asuka, she thought sardonically, _You're in danger of going soft at any time now._

She smiled at that thought. A psychology class had told her that all humans felt the desire to feel needed and accepted, but no lecturer would ever be able to convey exactly what it was like to quell that desire, to be accepted.

Smiling even more, she remembered that the same lecturer had said that the effects of love on the human brain were irrational and almost impossible to predict.

'Asuka...?'

'Yes?'

'What is...this?'

'...What?'

'What is this, you and me? Is it anything?'

Asuka sighed quietly.

'I don't know...but...Shinji?'

'Hm?'

'Don't leave just yet.'

In her kitchen, Misato took a while to realise that something was not normal. In fact, it took her until she had opened her larger fridge, and subsequently her first beer of the morning, to realise that neither Shinji nor Asuka were in the kitchen. Her pet apparently realised quicker than she did, as when Pen Pen emerged from his fridge, looked around the room, and looked up quizzically at Misato.

'Yeah, you're right...I'll go wake them up...they've got a harmonics test this morning anyway,' she muttered to Pen Pen. Satisfied with this answer, he wandered off to wherever it was that penguins in Japanese apartment blocks go to in the morning.

Misato stood up, walking down the hallway to Asuka's room, to catch Asuka walking out the door. Mumbling a quick "'Morning Misato", she continued on her way to the bathroom. Shrugging, Misato was about to go and wake Shinji, when the door she had just finished closing opened before her.

'Good morning, Shinji.'

'Uh, good...good morning, Misato...'

A tense quiet filled the doorway as Shinji and Misato faced each other, both not quite knowing what to say in the awkward situation they found themselves in.

'So...were you going to go make breakfast?' Misato asked at last.

Shinji's face displayed a similar sort of relief as if he had just come to understand all of the implications of the unified theory of relativity.

'Uh...yeah,' he said to the floor, and swiftly made his way to the kitchen.

Asuka walked into the kitchen, a towel wrapped around her long hair, and sat at the table. If she had been looking, she would have noticed Misato's attempts to hold back a smirk, or that Shinji was avoiding her gaze by paying intent attention to the food he was preparing. As it was, she noticed that the kitchen was decidedly quiet for the Katsuragi household. Misato broke the silence with a seemingly casual question, which in its false innocence was designed to get a reaction from both the pilots in the room.

'So, Asuka...sleep well?'

Asuka jumped and looked in Misato's direction. In doing so, she caught Shinji's gaze, and saw his face begin to flush with blood. Her eyes then caught Misato's knowing ones, moving down to her slight grin and her cocky stance. Back to Shinji. Back to Misato.

'We didn't do anything!' she cried defensively.

Misato burst out laughing.

'You said they what?' Ritsuko asked in disbelief as she watched the various displays. Misato could only be thankful for the fact that they were the only two in the testing lab, and that the communications between them and the pilots had been temporarily shut off.

'Uh-huh. Don't you think it's sweet?' Although her back was turned, Misato's old roommate was able to know she had one of those big stupid smiles on her face.

'I think it might explain this slight rise here.'

'Oh, you're no fun.' Again, Ritsuko was able to tell Misato was pouting at her as she sat down in a chair, putting her feet up onto the one beside it.

''This is a dangerous situation for the pilots to be in, Misato. We're going to be in the dark as far as extrapolating any possible data for them goes.'

'Did you know Asuka is on anti-depressants, Ritsuko?' Misato asked suddenly.

'You had access to her files, I'm surprised you didn't know,' Ritsuko replied, unfazed by the question.

'I just think this might give the pair of them some emotion stability...Asuka's results _have_ been slipping, and you can't-'

'Or they might end up like you and the man _you_ loved, ever think of that, Major?'

Misato folded her arms, meeting Ritsuko's gaze with an icy stare.

'That's a _very_ low blow, and you know it.'

Ritsuko's gaze dropped, picked up again by the monitors.

'I'm sorry...I just don't approve of it.'

Misato leaned back in her chair again, and sighed, thinking, _But you don't have to live with them..._

Emerging from the changing rooms, Asuka was met by Shinji, still wearing his plugsuit, fresh from his tests.

'You did well today, Shinji,' she said, 'Misato just told me.'

'...Thankyou, Asuka,' he replied, smiling a little as he did so, which swiftly spread to Asuka's mouth and, as she observed, Shinji's eyes, also.

Asuka looked across the cityscape that lay out before her, the last fading rays of the sun still catching the light on windows and reflecting their orange-red hues across the streets. The same red-orange hues were suddenly blocked beside her as Shinji came out on to the balcony, watching the sun set with her.

'Shinji...' she asked, not taking her eyes off the horizon, 'Tomorrow we're going back to school...what do you want to tell them?'

Shinji glanced at her, her gaze still focused straight ahead.

'I don't know...what are we going to tell them?'

He saw her eyes drop slightly, as he was hoping to catch them for a brief second.

'Shinji, I...I like you. And I had to get myself so depressed to actually be able to tell you. If you don't think that...or that you'll be pushed away...or-'

'Asuka,' Shinji said, making her look up into his light blue eyes.

'...I'm not going to push you away.'

A look Shinji could not identify crossed Asuka's face, and the next thing he knew, she was clutching to him, holding him close, burying her face into his shoulder. Shinji put his arms around her, protecting her as the sun finally set.

'Shinji,' she whispered, 'Will you hold me again tonight?'

'Of course,' he said softly back to her, 'Of course.'

Asuka quietly entered Shinji's room, laying down beside him as he gazed up at the ceiling. Without a word, he accepted her, taking his arms around her as she lay beside him, cradling her as she drifted into sleep. This embrace was warm, comforting, letting all the heavy thoughts she had float away, her mind unburdened. Her finger lazily traced random patterns across Shinji's chest, and this was comfort, this was acceptance, this was love, reality, and eternity.

The rays of the morning sun slowly dripped away at Asuka's slumber. As she blinked open her eyes, she was about to turn to her side, to kiss Shinji awake, when a familiar voice stopped her.

'Morning, sleepyhead.'

The person greeting her was not Shinji. Shinji was nowhere to be seen.

'M...Misato?' What are you...'

'You were having a bad dream. I came in here to see what was happening, and I guess I fell asleep myself.'

Asuka shrugged herself out of Misato's grasp, muttering, 'You don't need to treat me like a little kid,' and stood up to walk out the door.

'What was your dream about?'

Asuka paused for a second, spoke a quite, 'Nothing,' and continued out the door.

__

It was...a dream. Only a dream.

It doesn't have to just be a dream...

It was...nice...

...

...But it was_ only a dream._

Lowering her head into her hands, she whispered to herself, 'How much longer are you going to lie to yourself, Asuka?'

Zischke In The Jar Productions (c), 2001-05-28  
[deadmanseven@optushome.com.au][1]  
[http://members.optusnet.com.au/~lox18/Index.htm][2]

'Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I can't remember...'  
-Chumbawamba

   [1]: mailto:deadmanseven@optushome.com.au
   [2]: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~lox18/Index.htm



End file.
